The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, with memoir of the author.

54 riOKEBY. [CANTO I.
Unmatch'd in strength, a giant he,
With quiver'd back,l and kirtled knee.
account bore, that it had been the abode of a deity, or giant,
called Magon; and appeals, in support of this tradition, as
well as to the etymology of Risingham, or Reisenham, which
signifies, in German, the habitation of the giants, to two
Roman altars taken out of the river, inscribed, DEo MOGONTI
CADENORuIis. About half a mile distant from Risingham,
upon an eminence covered with scattered birch-trees and
fragments of rock, there is cut upon a large rock, in alto
r'elievo, a remarkable figure, called Robin of Risingham, or
Robin of Reedsdale. It presents a hunter, with his bow raised
in one hand, and in the other what seems to be a hare. There
is a quiver at the back of the figure, and he is dressed in a
long coat, or kirtle, coming down to the knees, and meeting
close, with a girdle bound round him. Dr. Horseley, who
saw all monuments of antiquity with Roman eyes, inclines to
think this fig-ure a Roman archer; and certainly the bow is
rather of the ancient size than of that which was so formidable in the hand of the English archers of the middle ages.
But the rudeness of the whole figure prevents our founding
strongly upon mere inaccuracy of proportion. The popular
tradition is, that it represents a giant, whose brother resided
at Woodburn, and lie himself at Risingham. It adds, that
they subsisted by hunting, and that one of them, finding the
game become too scarce to support them, poisoned his companion, in whose memory the monument was engraved.
What strange and tragic circumstance may be concealed
under this legend, or whether it is utterly apocryphal, it is
now impossible to discowr.
The name of Robin of Redesdale, was given to one of the
Umfravilles, Lords of Prudhoe, and afterwards to one Hilliard,
a friend and follower of the king-making Earl of Warwick.
This person commanded an army of Northamptonshire and
northernl men, who seized on and beheaded the Earl Rivers,
father to Edward the Fourth's queen, and his son, Sir John
Woodville.-See HOLINSHED, ad annum, 1469.
1 [MS. — With bow in hand," &c.]